The Things written in the Desert Sand
by The Unwritten One
Summary: In the past, Naruto and Nailah where always together, until Naruto just got up one day and left Hatari. After all this time they meet again both older, both wiser, both stronger, but the long silence has created a strange distance neither of them seems willing too cross. Requested by the guest named Deflow. NarutoXNailah
1. Hatari's History

AN: Well, here it is: another story.

To nobody in particular: This story will contain a lemon at some point in the future (unlike most of my work thus far), it's a first for me but I'm looking forward to it. That's it.

To the guest who goes by the name of Deflow: Sorry for making you wait so long. Next time, if I'm taking to long, feel free to let me know, it works as extra motivation. I'm still not sure how to work all of it out story wise, but I'll manage. You'll notice I've taken some liberties when it comes to writing the story combined with your ideas and things. I hope you're not mad or anything, if you are, just let me know, and if you have any other ideas, just let me know too. I hope you like it and again sorry for being late...

* * *

The things written in the desert sand

* * *

_"__Have you heard? The wolf queen will be leaving Tellius soon. She has decided to return to Hatari."_

_"__Hatari? The land of the golden roads and crystal palaces? Such a wonderful place that must be. I can't imagine why anyone would ever leave such a paradise…"_

* * *

In the very beginning, there was only Tellius. The lands stretched further, but the only place that had a name was the continent Tellius, the cradle of life. This was where the Zunanma lived, the race that was both human and animal. The goddess of Dawn lived amongst her children and everything was at peace.

Unfortunately, peace could not remain forever. The Zunanma changed, both in form and in mindset. They evolved into two different races, Beorc, humans blessed with wisdom, and the Laguz, humans with the ability to change into a beast, amongst who were various tribes. And both races fought each other.

During the large war, there were three tribes of Laguz, who saw that there was no place for them left on Tellius and chose to travel beyond the border of Tellius. The first tribe to leave the continent of Tellius was the tribe of the Kitsune, a mysterious tribe from which still is little known today. They crossed the Grann Desert and finally settled in the desert sand in a land they called Hatari.

The second and third tribe fled across the desert later on during the war, when their numbers had dwindled too much to survive on Tellius. These were the wolf tribe and the eagle tribe. When they reached Hatari, the Kitsunes welcomed them in their lands and the country was ultimately founded on cooperation and trust.

During the rest of the war, many more fled across the desert, although these fugitives only came in small groups, since no other tribes desired to leave Tellius. Where the whole continent remained at war, the habitants of Hatart, although their lives were not easy in the desert, were happy and all people of all races lived happily and equally, under the reign of the wisest of Kitsunes.

Even so, the goddess Ashunera, the creator of life, could no longer see her children stand against each other and she flooded the world. Only the continent of Tellius remained dry. This act brought the Beorc and Laguz to stop the war and they established borders in order to try and keep the peace.

In Hatari, this flooding came suddenly and most of the land became sea. Most of the people of Hatari were saved by the Kitsunes, who strengthened the highest mountains of sand with their natural knowledge of fire. They placed all people on these high mountains, but while saving their people, most of the Kitsunes drowned and only a small fraction of them remained.

When the goddess had seen what she had done by flooding the world, she rid herself of her emotions and became too separate beings; Ashera, the goddess of order, and Yune, the goddess of chaos, who both fell in a long deep sleep. And unless war would not be fought upon the whole continent of Tellius for a thousand years, Ashera would awake and destroy all life that was left.

Although the flooding itself was not undone, the water level decreased to some degree and the whole land of Hatari was once again left dry. Although they had suffered a great loss, the people of Hatari went on living. The flood had left behind a river that crossed their lands, which would provide them with fertile soil every year after the seasonal flooding. The remaining Kitsunes gave up their remaining power to the nobelest of wolves and under their reign Hatari became prosperous, becoming known as the land of golden sand. They were said to live in houses that shone like crystal.

These were the last tales of Hatari to reach Tellius, after which Hatari became a legend and after that a fairy tale after which it ultimately became completely forgotten. The people of Hatari had not heard anything from the continent of Tellius since the flooding of the world and they started to believe that they were the only survivors of the flooding. Tellius became something studied by scholars through ancient manuscripts.

Although it may believe otherwise, this isolation did Hatari good. Where people on Tellius were almost always at conflict, although war did not ravage the whole continent, the people in Hatari did not fight amongst each other. Race was unimportant. Although most royalty still consisted of the most full-blooded of them, powerful positions were distributed on the basis of ability and everyone was happy with this way of doing things.

Only a rough eight hundred years after Hatari had forgotten Tellius did someone dare to go out in search of land beyond the desert. Although there have been and will be hundreds of people who attempted to cross the desert, some successful, some not, but none of them documented, the first attempt after the passing of eight centuries was that of Nailah, Queen of Hatari, with only her loyal servant and the Heron prince, whom she had once rescued from death at the hands of the desert, at her side. She went, despite everyone warning her that there was no such thing as a land after the desert, in search of such a land, hoping to find prosperous and peaceful countries and their people.

And she rediscovered not just some land, but the whole continent of Tellius. Unfortunately, she found it in anything but a peaceful state. The tales of Ike Greil tell of how she and her loyal servant Volug too fought to restore peace, but this tale is not the telling of those tales. But after the long battles she fought, the wolf queen planned to her homeland and one can only wonder about the things that happened after that…


	2. Day 1

"If you don't want to go, I'll go by myself!" And with that Sasuke turned around and walked away from Naruto, in his usual 'I'm better than everybody else'-attitude. Naruto stuck his tongue out at Sasuke, not that it mattered much, since he already had turned his back. Now Naruto remained alone, sitting on a table – he was using the bench to rest his feet on – with a warm cup of good soup in his hands.

He probed the meatballs left in the soup with his spoon. He hadn't wanted to split with his friend, although said friend would barely let him call him an acquaintance, he refused to go to Sasuke's intended destination. For one moment it had even seemed like Sasuke would budge and postpone his plans to travel towards the destination, but as soon as it had become clear that Naruto refused to tell him his reasons for not wanting to go back to Hatari, Sasuke made an end to their travels together.

But there was nothing Naruto could do about that now and, after having finished the bowl of soup, he definitely needed to pick his own next destination. The townspeople had been very kind to him – even while they knew that he was not completely 'human' – and had allowed for him to stay for free at the very inn he was now sitting in front of, food included. In the end, although it had been a long time since he had been able to eat as much as he wanted, he had no plans for outstaying his welcome, and it was good food too.

"Why does he need to be such a prick?" he mumbled to himself as he stared at the bottom of his, now empty, bowl. Naruto considered getting himself another bowl, but instead someone unexpectedly put a hand on his shoulder, with quite some force too, causing him to jump up immediately.

"As energetic as ever?" Ike grinned.

"Well, what'd you expect me to do after getting hit like that?!" Naruto yelled back.

"I never planned on hitting you," Ike responded, "I suppose I could apologize for using to much force, though…"

"You should!" Naruto concluded as he sat down on the table again. Ike shrugged sat down on the bench and leaned against the table. Both of them could now look at the passers-by, but rather than focussing on that, Ike started a conversation instead.

"I saw Sasuke stomping away when I headed here." When Naruto didn't immediately respond he added: "Did you guys have a fight or something?"

"Yeah… So what?"

Ike shrugged again, "Just asking. Did you already decide where you're going next? I remember you guys were just travelling from one point to the next."

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I figured we should try to get into Goldoa, like we were trying before you guys showed up, but now that prick suddenly decided he wants to go to Hatari all of a sudden."

"Getting into Goldoa should be easier now, right?" Ike mused, "but why not just return to Hatari? In just a few days a large group will be going, it should be easier travelling with lost of people."

"I know," Naruto mumbled, hoping to appear to be talking more to himself that to Ike, "I want to… but I don't… want… uhm… I just can't…"

Before Ike could pry into the meaning behind his mumbling, Naruto tried to distract him: "What about your prick, he's not here with you, so where is he?"

Ike laughed. He always had to when Naruto called either Sasuke or Soren a prick. There were many other people Naruto called pricks, but these two always made Ike laugh, especially when Naruto would refer to them as 'his prick' or 'your prick' to differentiate between the two. As soon as Ike was done laughing, which was not longer that a short 'haha' this time, he said: "Soren's playing chess or something with Shikamaru."

"So they're being boring again?"

"Meh, it's quite interesting, neither of us just don't have the patience for that sort of thing."

"I suppose," Naruto agreed.

After a moment of silence, Ike tried to continue his earlier line of questioning: "So you'll be travelling to Goldoa next?"

"I don't know yet," Naruto said, feeling his mood getting heavy again, "Sasuke wants to go to Hatari no matter what, so I'll be alone, that's for sure."

"Well, either everyone is going home or going to Hatari, so there's not all too much choice…" Ike turned to face Naruto – up until that point they had just been looking at the street in front of them – "There's just one thing bothering me: why are you so against going to Hatari?"

"I… uhm… Right now… I … I just can't," Naruto tried to sound convincing, but, quite obviously, failed miserably.

"What's keeping you hear? As far as I know nothing is. I mean: Hatari is your homeland. Don't you want to return there?"

Naruto frowned, already seeing his demise – he had no intention of revealing his reasons for not going to Hatari to anyone, not yet anyway – and tried to change the topic, again: "Well… What about you?"

"Me?" Ike responded, actually quite surprised.

"You're going to leave here. So, won't you miss it?"

"Of course, I'm going to miss it here," Ike said, sighing, "but I also want to see more of the world now that I know that there's still so much more to discover. And besides, I'm not planning on leaving forever."

"You aren't?"

"No," Ike said resolute, "I promised myself that I would one day return here. It's that simple."

"Why are you so sure that you'll ever return?" Naruto sounded as if he was doubting something.

"Euh…" Ike scratched at his temple, "I'm not, actually… But still, I'll try my very best to make it back here one day."

"And that's seriously all you have?" Naruto stared at him dumbfounded, "Your best?"

Ike thought for a moment. "Pretty much. Promises are nice and all, but I can't do anything but my best if I want to keep them, right? And since I promises Mist that I'd bring her souvenirs, I'll have to do everything I can!" Ike grinned.

"Yeah!" Naruto grinned, as if he had suddenly remembered something he had almost forgotten, "I've got to try my best! And one day, I'll come back and keep my promise, believe it!"

Ike, not really sure what Naruto was talking about, smiled anyway. "That's the spirit."

"Just one thing," Naruto looked at Ike suspiciously, "What are you doing here in the first place?"

"What do you mean?" Ike looked surprised.

"Well, people are always running around and asking you to help them or something… I can't imagine you have time to just sit here."

Ike shrugged, "Okay, I give, you got me. I wanted to have a chat with you before I left." Naruto still looked completely unconvinced, so Ike continued: "Fine, I'm here on behalf of Volug."

Naruto expression changed into one of shock for a split second and then tried to continue as if he didn't know anything, which only revealed he didn't know how to keep a good poker face. "I… Uhm… I have no idea… I don't know… Uhm… who that is. Yeah, I don't know any wolf Laguz."

"I never said Volug was a wolf Laguz."

"I saw him fight, okay!" Naruto yelled, in a last desperate attempt to cover up for his mistake.

Ike looked at the desperate actions, and deadpanned: "That doesn't explain how you know his name was Volug."

"Fine," Naruto scowled, "I know Volug, but nobody else."

"You know Nailah."

And at this simple phrase Naruto's face was one of complete surprise, confusion and some other emotions, which only completed the whole picture of utter panic. This of course only confirmed it.

"O-okay, b-but what is the point behind all this…" he mumbled defeated.

Ike clasped his hands together and his expression turned more serious. "I'm not sure what's going on, but as far as I've understood it, you are a good friend of the two of them, or you used to be at least. I also know that you have put quite the amount of effort in avoiding them thus far."

"I know…" Naruto mumbled, "but I shouldn't talk to them yet…"

"Yet?" Ike questioned, then shook his head and continued, "Never mind that, but the reason I am here is that Nailah and Volug are upset about you not talking them."

"So you're here to tell me that I have to talk to them," Naruto said stubbornly as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I thought we were friends but you talk as if you are the boss of me."

Ike grinned a bit. "I am your friend, but I am also their friend."

"I don't like where this is going…"

"We're leaving for Hatari in a week from now. I don't care if you go with us to Hatari or not, but either way, I want you to talk to Nailah and Volug."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll think of something," Ike smiled.

"You're just certain that I will cave in, aren't you?"

"Maybe, are you going to?"

Naruto looked ahead of himself, sulking.


End file.
